NCT05432271

Online Food and Beverage Labels and Vending Machine Selections

A Large-scale, Long-term, Randomized Trial of Nutrition Labeling Interventions

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 8,145 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The aim of this study is to compare the impact of 5 different types of front of package (FOP) food and beverage labels: 1) calorie labels \[control\], 2) green labels on healthy foods, 3) red/yellow/green labels on less healthy/moderately healthy/healthy foods, 4) physical activity calorie equivalent labels, and 5) "High in" nutrient warning labels) on consumers' beverage and snack selections.

Detailed description

This project involves an online randomized experiment. We are working with an external survey company that will recruit 8,000 participants to complete an online survey in which they will be randomized to one of the five different label conditions: 1) calorie labels (control condition); 2) single green traffic light labels (on healthy foods); 3) multiple traffic light labels (red traffic light labels applied to less healthy foods, yellow applied to moderately healthy foods, and green on healthy foods); 4) physical activity labels (calorie content displayed in terms of physical activity equivalents); 5) "High in" warnings (applied to all products exceeding thresholds for calories, saturated fat, sugar, or sodium content). Participants will be instructed to select products to purchase in a mock vending machine. After purchasing their products, they will be asked to answer questions about their perceptions of the different labels.

Conditions

• Food Preferences
• Obesity
• Weight Gain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure to calorie information	Calories for all beverages and foods
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure to healthy labels only	Green labels only for beverages and foods scored as healthy
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure to healthiness information	All beverages and foods labeled as either healthy (green), moderately healthy (yellow), or less healthy (red)
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure to physical activity equivalents	All beverages and foods labeled with physical activity required to burn their calories
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure to "high in" nutrient warning labels	Warning labels only for beverages and foods that exceed the thresholds for sugar, sodium, saturated fat, or calorie content

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-11-16
• Primary completion: 2022-12-03
• Completion: 2022-12-03
• First posted: 2022-06-27
• Last updated: 2023-12-20
• Results posted: 2023-12-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States